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11th January 2006 Archive

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  • Sun and Oracle promise to work together for 10 more years

    McNealy celebrates with free databases for all

    Sun Microsystems and Oracle today renewed their vows in front of loved ones, employees and hacks. During a press conference at Oracle's headquarters, Sun chief Scott McNealy and the Oracle at Selphi, Larry Ellison, announced that the two companies will continue to work closely for at least the next 10 years. To prove their …

    Servers 11 Jan 2006, 00:31

  • IntelliJ IDEA 5.0: can it survive the Eclipse onslaught?

    Review Sometimes less is more

    The rise and rise of Eclipse is a mixed blessing for developers. There are obvious benefits in the existence of such a high-quality tools platform, free and open source, and seemingly everyone bar Sun and Microsoft has signed up to use it. The downside is the pressure it puts on other independent tools vendors. It is sad to …

    Developer 11 Jan 2006, 07:02

  • Mercury buys Systinet for SOA goodness

    From application to service optimization

    Mercury Interactive is buying into SOA with the $105m cash acquisition of privately held Systinet. The application performance and tuning specialist says the deal will help it enable customers to "take a lifecycle approach to optimizing the quality, performance and availability of SOA business services". Systinet offers the …

    Developer 11 Jan 2006, 09:22

  • European IT spending shrinking

    Researchers find shrinking market

    IT spending across Europe is under even more pressure and budgets will grow by just 1.6 per cent in 2006, compared to 2.9 per cent last year. Researchers from Forrester found that more than half of European firms plan to reduce IT budgets this year. The main priority across Europe is for spending on security, anti-virus and …

    Management 11 Jan 2006, 10:32

  • Contractors not 'tax dodgers' - PCG

    Gets the hump over Revenue ad

    The Professional Contractors Group (PCG) is having a strop over an ad it claims portrays self-employed people as tax dodgers. The group - which represents several thousand IT contractors in the UK - is so upset by the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) ad that it intends to file a complaint with the advertising watchdog. The ad in …

    Small Biz 11 Jan 2006, 10:44

  • Sprint Nextel in Clearwire spectrum swap

    Stepping up RBOC challenge

    Sprint Nextel and Clearwire are the biggest holders of 2.5GHz spectrum in the US and both are looking to build major WiMAX-class networks. But they are likely to steer clear of head-on competition, in order to accelerate their roll-outs and strengthen the potential of new broadband wireless services to shift the balance of power …

    Broadband 11 Jan 2006, 10:57

  • Thin-client firm offers fat margins

    IGEL comes to UK

    A German maker of thin-client hardware has set up shop in the UK. Called IGEL Technology, the company has hired Simon Richards, previously at Wyse, to build a channel-only business here. Apparently, the UK is the biggest thin-client market in Europe and server-based computer sales are growing at a lick, according to IDC. IGEL …

    The Channel 11 Jan 2006, 11:01

  • Systems Union hails record results

    Nice

    Systems Union Group will announce record results when it files accounts for the year ended 31 December 2005. The accountancy software group has, helpfully, issued a trading statement today to let investors and analysts know what to expect - although they already know what to expect, as the results are in line with market …

    The Channel 11 Jan 2006, 11:02

  • BT cuts ribbon on new Openreach biz

    Warm white wine and canapes all round

    The great and the good of the UK's telco sector are converging on central London to celebrate the formal launch of BT's network access business, Openreach. Speaking today, Steve Robertson, Openreach's chief exec, said: "The big day has arrived. The whole Openreach team is utterly committed to providing Britain's communication …

    Networks 11 Jan 2006, 11:18

  • Google and Yahoo step up mobile ambitions

    Beyond the button

    Google and Yahoo, for the second time, announced new mobile activities on the same day. Their approaches, while quite different, will increasingly bring the giants into conflict in the emerging market for delivering consistent services and content across home, PC and mobile devices – and will enable them to challenge the handset …

    Mobile 11 Jan 2006, 11:19

  • Mentec goes completely Mentec

    Rebrands UK acquisitions

    Mentec, the Irish Great Plains reseller, is having an image makeover in a bid to reflect its integration with its recent UK acquisitions. The companies bought, Xdat and Sytation, will now trade alongside their parent company as Mentec International. ®

    The Channel 11 Jan 2006, 11:21

  • Levi's tailors jeans to fit iPod

    Is that an iPod in your pocket or... oh, forget it

    Jeans-maker Levi Strauss has designed a pair of denim trousers with an integrated iPod remote control. The jeans also provide an iPod dock and retractable earphones. The hardware tucks into the trouser's special side pocket - neatly side-stepping those bottom-broken back-pocket iPod Nano blues. The controller is located in the …

    Peripherals 11 Jan 2006, 11:31

  • AOL buys video-search firm

    Truveo joins the big boys

    AOL is buying in talent to strengthen its video-search function as more and more big players get interested in the technology. The Time Warner subsidiary has paid an undisclosed amount for Truveo, a two-year-old, privately owned start-up. This is not its first move into video search - in 2003 it bought Singingfish, which …

    Financial News 11 Jan 2006, 11:45

  • More cracks appear in Windows

    Never-ending patch cycle

    Microsoft released two more critical patches on Tuesday - days after it released an emergency fix for a critical WMF vulnerability that has been exploited by hackers and virus writers. The two latest updates - which, unlike the WMF patch, came out as part of Microsoft's regular Patch Tuesday update cycle - fix a flaw in the way …

    Security 11 Jan 2006, 11:57

  • Another computer factory to close in Scotland

    Firm announces the loss of 370 jobs

    There's yet more bad news for tech workers in Scotland after a second computer firm announced plans to shut down its factory. Glasgow-based Inventec Scotland Servers announced yesterday that it plans to close its factory later this year and transfer operations to the Czech Republic. The closure of the factory will result in …

    Financial News 11 Jan 2006, 11:58

  • Downloads, iPods make music more 'disposable'

    'There are simply too many notes, Herr Mozart'

    A University of Leicester psychologist has concluded that modern listeners don't value music as much as their 19th-century counterparts did - and he blames the iPod and music downloading. A team of researchers from Leicester, Surrey and York universities, led by Leicester School of Psychology's Dr Adrian North, questioned 346 …

    Hardware 11 Jan 2006, 12:24

  • Vultures under threat worldwide

    Painkiller abuse to blame

    Vultures worldwide are under threat from a commonly used livestock painkiller which destroys their kidneys, the BBC reports. Our feathered friends are being wiped out in India as a result of eating carrion contaminated with Diclofenac - a cheap inflammation treatment for cattle. A report by the British Royal Society for the …

    Science 11 Jan 2006, 12:33

  • Catch as catch can

    Stob A light-hearted look at exception handling

    Exception handling is a comparative newcomer to the programmer’s toolset. The mighty for loop, the enigmatic if statement and the cheeky little counter increment have been with us since the first automatic languages bubbled to the surface of the primordial programming bog at Manchester, more than half a century ago. But, …

    Verity Stob 11 Jan 2006, 12:42

  • Pinder takes chair at Becta

    Former e-envoy gets down with the kids

    Andrew Pinder is to head up UK IT quango the British Education Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA), the government announced today. Pinder’s bio includes a stint as Tony Blair’s e-envoy, as well as time in other government and private sector IT roles, and in venture capital. He left the e-envoy job in August 2004, as …

    Policy 11 Jan 2006, 13:19

  • Microsoft wins FAT patent case

    Could use it as stick to beat Linux

    The US Patent Office has upheld Microsoft's claim of patent rights over its File Allocation Table. The decision reverses two earlier judgements and potentially allows Microsoft to go after open-source developers who use the technology. FAT controls how computers store information to hard drives and other storage devices such as …

    Media 11 Jan 2006, 13:44

  • Microsoft drops hotel in English Channel

    Plenty of cold running water, then

    We have, in the past, made merry with Microsoft and its command of cartography - notably when its MapPoint recommended that the best way to drive between the Norwegian towns of Haugesund and Trondheim was a 2,600 jaunt via the North Sea and English Channel - one of many curious jaunts. MapPoint could not, however, at that time …

    Bootnotes 11 Jan 2006, 13:46

  • Griffin EarThumps earphones

    Review Splendid isolation?

    I've long stopped listening to portable music players on London's Underground. You have to turn the volume so high to rise above the background racket, it quickly gets uncomfortable. I began to worry about my hearing. Skip forward several years to the iPod era and my fears were undiminished - quite the reverse, actually, since …

    Peripherals 11 Jan 2006, 13:48

  • Scammers offer defunct MS mag to developers

    Dead stupid

    Fraudsters are attempting to sell subscriptions to a defunct magazine in a lame attempt to defraud Microsoft developers. Software developers in the US have been receiving offers through the post to "subscribe" to the Microsoft Systems Journal (MSJ) for a "cut-price" $50 a year. But the programming journal, which began life in …

    Security 11 Jan 2006, 13:50

  • Korean uni 'sorry' for stem cell scandal

    President apologises

    The president of Seoul National University has apologised for the Hwang Woo-suk scandal which has seen the stem cell scientist exposed as a fraud, out of a job and today stripped of his title as Korea's first "supreme scientist", Reuters reports. Chung Un-chan told a press conference: "Hwang's research team did something …

    Science 11 Jan 2006, 13:54

  • Cost and confidentiality concerns undermine NHS IT plan

    Fewer doctors think NPfIT is a priority

    Support is dwindling among medical practitioners for the multi-billion pound modernisation of the NHS’ IT systems, a major new study shows. A survey of doctors by research firm Medix between December and January 2006 found that only one per cent of respondents thought implementation of the NHS' National Programme for IT (NPfIT …

    Policy 11 Jan 2006, 13:59

  • EC waves through O2 buy-out

    Telefonica agrees to leave roaming group

    The European Commission has cleared Telefonica's takeover of O2, Eurocrats announced yesterday. Although it agreed to give the deal the necessary rubber stamps, the Commission had raised concerns that the buy-out might jeopardise competition for international roaming charges. That's because both Telefonica and O2 belong to …

    Mobile 11 Jan 2006, 14:58

  • Topless car spares wow eBay

    NSFW What a lovely pair of... badges

    Long gone are the days when any shiny new motor car would be rolled out at some motor show with a near-naked hussy draped across the bonnet enticing the howling mob of (male) press and public to "come and adjust my twin carburettors" and "ooh, just the thought of fuel injection makes me go all dizzy". Why? The world has grown …

    Bootnotes 11 Jan 2006, 15:00

  • Neuros preps DVD-quality, HDD-enabled video recorders

    Open-source systems pitched at geeks

    Neuros is to update its MPEG-4 Video Recorder with a new industrial design and an integrated hard-disk drive. It is also preparing to revive its Digital Audio Computer (DAC) line of MP3 players, basing both systems on both a common hardware platform and open-source firmware. Both the Recorder III and the Neuros III DAC will be …

    Hardware 11 Jan 2006, 15:02

  • 'Quantum-Optical' chip maker shows 6.8GHz CPU

    Will open tech to independent evaluation, sort of

    Controversial computer company Atom Chip has said it will open the claims it makes about its ultra-compact memory technology and its 6.8GHz notebook CPU to independent scrutiny. The catch? Any such investigation must be made in the presence of company officials - just in case someone attempts to open the chip or the host …

    Hardware 11 Jan 2006, 15:06

  • Revenge of the Sith is the People's Choice

    21 million flies can't be wrong...

    Think of it what you may, but Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith last night won the People's Choice Award for best film when the great and the good gathered in LA to celebrate all that is wonderful in mainstream entertainment. According to the Beeb, George Lucas mounted the podium to declare: "I'm not a big favourite …

    Bootnotes 11 Jan 2006, 15:17

  • IT grads damn university courses

    And blame government for lack of help

    UK IT graduates complain that their university courses do not prepare them for work in the real world and that the Government is not doing enough to help them find jobs. Only six per cent of recent IT graduates believe the Government is doing enough to get them into work. In an online survey, 46 per cent of respondents said …

    Management 11 Jan 2006, 15:20

  • Face transplant woman hits the streets

    Public outings for new-look Frenchwoman

    The French face transplant recipient who received part of the visage of a brain-dead donor back in November has been out and about "without drawing stares", her surgeon has said. According to the BBC, Dr Bernard Devauchelle told Le Courrier Picard: "Every day she passes by people with her face uncovered - and they don't …

    Science 11 Jan 2006, 15:21

  • Official: iPod owners are not thieves

    Macs all right then...

    iPod owners might be daft fashion victims who are easily parted from their money, but they are not thieves, despite what Steve Ballmer may, or may not, have said. A survey of US and UK music buyers reveals that although 25 per cent of people admit to downloading music from file-sharing services, only seven per cent of iPod …

    Hardware 11 Jan 2006, 15:38

  • Apple stock price equals Intel's first x86 CPU

    Today's lucky number is 8086

    Apple's shares yesterday closed at $80.86 on the day CEO Steve Jobs introduced the first-ever Macintosh computers based on Intel microprocessors. Astute Register readers will immediately recognise that number: the 8086 was, of course, Intel's first 16-bit, x86 processor. It shipped in 1978, the year after Apple was founded. It …

    Mac Channel 11 Jan 2006, 15:40

  • Sky unveils VoD service

    BB access due later in the year

    Sky has unveiled details of a video-on-demand (VoD) service which gives punters access to sport and movies via a broadband connection The media giant reckons "Sky by broadband" gives customers greater choice to watch stuff when and where they like. Sky's VoD service is available to subscribers of two or more premium channels …

    Networks 11 Jan 2006, 15:44

  • Booming Infosys feels growing pains

    Call an outsourcer

    Indian offshoring giant Infosys posted a profit of about $146m in its most recent quarter, up 30 per cent year-on-year, as revenues grew 35 per cent to $559m. Yesterday, however, the company warned that its growth was being constrained by infrastructure issues, and that it couldn't acquire the land it needed in Mangalore and …

    Management 11 Jan 2006, 15:56

  • US patents get open-source flavour

    Listens and learns...

    The US Patent and Trademark Office is working with open-source developers to improve the way patents are applied to software. The USPTO has been talking to several firms, including IBM. Big Blue topped the patent charts again last year with 2,941 applications. The Patent Office will provide an open patent review section on its …

    Software 11 Jan 2006, 16:26

  • Spielberg's Munich mired in Bafta awards muddle

    DRM killed the video star

    Steven Spielberg's Munich has effectively been knocked out of the running for next month's Bafta awards after a batch of DVDs sent to voters eligible to judge the UK award were coded incorrectly for European viewing. Copies of the film were earlier held up for a month in UK Customs. When they finally made it out of cold storage …

    Bootnotes 11 Jan 2006, 16:32

  • School data not good enough

    The public sector gravy train steams on

    Educational computer systems in Britain face a radical overhaul in order to improve authorities' intelligence about the children in their care. Ruth Kelly, Secretary of State for Education & Skills, gave a hint of the enormity of the task during a speech at the education technology trade show, BETT, in London today. Data held …

    Policy 11 Jan 2006, 17:08

  • SAP beats estimates, but shares fall

    Strong growth

    Stronger than expected sales of software licenses by SAP weren't rewarded by the market today. SAP will show a rise in revenue to €2.75bn for the fourth quarter according to company guidance, of which $1.18bn is from software sales. Sales of licenses grew by 18 per cent, higher than the 12 to 14 per cent target. But its stock …

    Applications 11 Jan 2006, 17:11

  • Tablet Mac draws bidders on eBay

    iBook iTweaked

    Tired of waiting for Apple's long-rumoured tablet Mac to ship? Then US-based hardware mod project site, ThePlaceforitAll.com, may have the answer. It today offered the first of 100 12in iBooks re-tooled as a tablet, complete with stylus and touch-sensitive screen. The so-called iTabs - née iTablet, changed for legal reasons - …

    Hardware 11 Jan 2006, 17:15

  • Oracle helps Ashcroft board the terror gravy train

    Cover up those nudes, Larry

    Former US Attorney General John Ashcroft has hit the ground running in his new lobbying business - mostly thanks to Larry Ellison. Ellison's Oracle provided $220,000 of the $269,000 banked by The Ashcroft Group, the company reported in a financial statement. Ashcroft started the lobby business last summer with his former chief …

    Financial News 11 Jan 2006, 18:54

  • Apple bitten by iTunes security bugs

    Musical chairs

    Security researchers have discovered four critical vulnerabilities involving Apple's QuickTime media player software and the download application for Apple's iTunes music store. The flaws create a means for hackers to take control of affected systems, according to eEye Digital Security, the firm that discovered the bugs. All …

    Mac Channel 11 Jan 2006, 18:55

  • Papa LSD makes the trip to 100

    Hofmann has legions but no lesions

    Heroic comedian Bill Hicks once called for the news media to run a positive story on LSD consumption - a "Boy sees God and humanity's inner-beauty" piece meant to counter the "Boy jumps out of window and splatters" tales. We can come pretty close to achieving this goal by reporting that Albert Hofmann - the discoverer of LSD - …

    Science 11 Jan 2006, 18:57

  • 'Live' Visual Studio on drawing board

    Looking for features

    Microsoft is starting work on a "live" version of its Visual Studio integrated development environment (IDE) and is courting input from Windows developers on the project. John Montgomery, a director who spent seven years in Microsoft developer division marketing, has become a product manager to help define features in Visual …

    Developer 11 Jan 2006, 20:50

  • Google and CBS release embarrassment of a video store

    Review I know Apple, and you're no Apple

    "This is a truly historical meeting of the established and new media," said Les Moonves, the head of CBS, about his network's new video partnership with Google. Um, no, Les. So far, it's just a really crap web site. If, like us, you expected the new and improved Google Video service to rival something like Apple's iTunes store …

    Hardware 11 Jan 2006, 21:16

  • Hungry CA takes a bite out of PC protection

    Hits Control-F1

    Two weeks into the New Year and Computer Associates International (CA) has bought its second company, again targeting improved systems performance. CA is buying privately held partner Control-F1, whose software helps IT staff automate the detection, prevention and repair of PC problems, which in turn reduces outages. Control-F1 …

    Financial News 11 Jan 2006, 22:24

  • Investors toy with Sun and HP

    The science behind Wall Street

    This has been a fine week for proving the sage wisdom of Wall Street, particularly where hardware companies are concerned. Witness shares of Sun Microsystems which have drooped to $4.52 since nearing a 52-week high last week at more than $4.80 a share. Part of the drop seemed to stem from a Bernstein & Co. research note penned …

    Servers 11 Jan 2006, 22:45